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Queen Live at the Rainbow '74 (Official Release)


Bruno P.

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America also didn't care much for Hot Space or Body Language. But yeah, everything I've read is Americans didn't "get" the video for I Want to Break Free.

It's great that Queen has regained popularity enough to do US tours now, just a shame Freddie isn't with them.

The ironic thing is, Hot Space did better in the States than The Works.

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America also didn't care much for Hot Space or Body Language. But yeah, everything I've read is Americans didn't "get" the video for I Want to Break Free.

It's great that Queen has regained popularity enough to do US tours now, just a shame Freddie isn't with them.

Not only that, Americans didn't get Queen to begin with. They never understood Bohemian Rhapsody, when it came out for the first time 1975 I think it only made number 9. Crazy Little Thing Called Love was their first US number one, probably because they thought it was an Elvis song. Another One Bites the Dust became their second US number one, I don't know how Under Pressure charted. There just weren't enough fans to fill the stadiums. No one Freddie to do a duet with when performing Love of My Life. They probably couldn't get past his outfits or mustache.

It took Wayne's World in 1992 to "masculinize" the song. Then it became okay for straight men to like Queen. I mean there have been Queen fans in the US for awhile (Axl Rose, James Hetfield) but they probably kept it in the closet. No pun intended.

Hot Space is a great album. I think Body Language is a horrible song but Staying Power was fun, better live, Dancer, Back Chat and Action This Day were fun. Brian's pro-gun law Put Out the Fire is amazing. The whole second side was great. Disco was dead anyway so I guess Queen never got the memo. AC/DC killed it with Back in Black.

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I watched this documentary on the making of Bohemian Rhapsody and they got Oxford's best literary minds to decipher the lyrics and they couldn't figure out the song and one asks "What would Freddie think if we were trying to figure out his song" someone replies "He'd be fucking delighted!"

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But they were a big band in the 1970s: Madison Square Gardens, Detroit Cobo Hall, Long Beach Arena - these are not venues to be sniffed at and they were all sold out by Queen between 1977-78 (A Day At The Races to Game Tours). America's love of Queen peaked with The Game, then quickly unraveled.

Edited by DieselDaisy
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Body Language is an underrated live gem. Love Roger's vocals on it.

Revisionist history is Queen was never understood in America, but as Diesel has shown, they were quite popular until Hot Space and the I Want to Break Free video.

Bohemian Rhapsody still didn't hit number one in the US when it was re-released in 1992.

Edited by luciusfunk
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The thing is, when their album sales slumped with The Works, Queen were sort of cocky about plugging the market (this was still the days when, you promoted an album through touring it). They would have probably dropped from stadiums to theatre so they basically said, ''why bother?'' and never toured America again. Hypothetically, they could have worked the market a bit but they would have started from such a drop, from the places they were playing elsewhere.

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Yeah, stadium tours mean more tickets. Was the attendance really poor during the American leg of the Hot Space tour? There was one show in Montreal or some North American city where they had this unenthusiastic crowd, to which Freddie lost patience with them and was like "Come you mother fuckers!"


Obviously I found the video after I typed that first sentence.

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Montreal was just two shows between The Game and Hot Space to make a concert film. It wasn't really part of a tour and Freddie was upset with the crowd on Love of My Life and Jailhouse Rock.

Queen at the MK Bowl was Hot Space. I haven't seen video of any US Hot Space shows, but I've heard audio.

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Some of it have been on the EP discs on the remastered CD's. Been slowly collecting them. Right now I much rather see live shows. Especially from the 70's because they are much more rare.

I wonder if Live at Wembley is the definitive Queen show? Seems to get the most praise among fans.

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I didn't know that. I don't really follow Brian and Roger much. Mostly because I have been pissed at them for Adam Lambert. At least Paul Rodgers never tried to be like Freddie. Even then, I never bothered with Queen plus Paul. To me, Queen was over with Freddie passed.

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I wonder if Live at Wembley is the definitive Queen show? Seems to get the most praise among fans.

There's a good bit of sentimental value to that one.

The band was great, Freddie had that rasp from night after night of singing, but he still sounded great but the audience were the best. When Freddie couldn't hit the high notes that night but the crowd managed to do it he said "fuck you!" that was great.

Freddie sounded fantastic Live at the Rainbow. He took better care of his vocals back then. He was more talkative though.

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Rainbow '74 is such a Queen hipster's dream setlist. You really have to know your Queen to dig all the tunes being played, but Wembley 86 had pretty much every big song they released.

It was before A Night at the Opera when they became one of the biggest bands in the world. It shows even before they became huge they acted like they were the biggest band in the world. That confidence worked out for them.

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